


everything's made to be broken

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Abuse, mentions of past violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 12:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: there is a reason why he has come all the way up here, only tonotknock on the door.





	everything's made to be broken

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet about what I would like to have happened after the ending of 1x08. I know there is going to be a major turning point soon in the series, and I hope it is for the better for Malex. Meanwhile, I entertain myself with these two.
> 
> Unbeta'ed. As always, English isn't my mother tongue, so please let me know if you catch any mistake. 
> 
> I don't own anything. How I wish I'd own these two, so I could adopt them and make them live happily ever after.
> 
> Title and quote from _Iris_ by Goo Goo Dolls.

**_you bleed just to know you're alive_ **

He doesn’t know how he ends up in front of a locked door in the middle of the junkyard. All he knows is that his unsteady steps have led him here, about to knock on a door he had vowed himself not to approach ever again. How the tables turn when one decides to pursue his own life instead of whatever cracked path laid in front of him.

He reaches out and rests his fingers on the metal, not really pounding. It is more like a caress, with a tenderness he was sure he had left somewhere in the Middle East, between the crossed fire and the bombs.

Now more than ever, he hopes his father isn’t right, at least he doesn’t want him to be. Because if Jesse Manes is right, the man on the other side of the metallic door is a threat and should not be trusted. And how can he tell his heart not to leap to Michael Guerin whenever he sees those disheveled curls? He doesn’t _know_ anything else to do but cherish the few moments he allows himself to dream that they could be something bigger than a lowlife cowboy and a wrecked military man brought together by fate in the middle of nowhere.

His forehead joins his fingers on the door, but he still doesn’t knock. He remains still, trying to even his breathing and failing miserably.

It is the first night of a whole new life, and he feels as the kid he once was – broken, battered, belittled. He doesn’t find the nerve to rap on a door he could have called his own had he dared to face his demons before.

 _Man up, Manes,_ he chastises himself. _Just knock the damned door already._

“Oh man, I don’t think I can deal with this right now,” he hears at his back, and it’s only then that he realizes there had been no one inside the trailer for as long as he’s been standing awkwardly against the door. 

He turns around and sees Michael looking back at him, haggard and all but defeated. Michael seems to have been crying a bit, but it could be the light. “Guerin,” he greets, words coming out strained. He clears his throat but doesn’t say anything else.

“Look, Alex,” Michael sighs. “It’s been a tough night, and I can’t deal with any more drama. I’ve had my share of it to last me this lifetime and probably another one. So please, leave. I don’t want to have whatever conversation you want to have at,” he looks up at the stars as if counting, “one in the morning.”

“What’s happened?” he asks in concern, ignoring Michael’s plea. He really wants to know why all of a sudden the tough cowboy seems to be coming undone at his seams. 

Michael shakes his head and heads for one of the lawn chairs languidly spread in front of the Airstream. He doesn’t say a word as he plops down, but there’s a lone tear finding its way down his cheek when he looks up at Alex. “You aren’t going away, are you now?” Michael asks resigned. “You’ve always had the worst timing on Earth.”

“Well, probably I have the worst timing in the whole galaxy,” Alex agrees intently. “But I do worry about you. What’s going on?” He hasn’t seen Michael so lost _ever_ – not even when a hammer stole away his future. “I want to help.”

“You want to help,” Michael snarls, but it sounds so sad Alex flinches at the raw pain he can hear in that usually strong voice. “Now you want to help. You made crystal clear that you didn’t want to be associated with a criminal like me. What’s changed?”

He feels like Michael has punched him in the face with his own words. As he was saying them, he knew he was being awfully unfair to Michael, and now it is time for him to get revenge. “I will leave you then,” he says, retreating. He is starting to miss his crutch; he’s been walking around without it for almost the whole day – ever since he hit his father with it in the morning – and the effort is wearing him down. “I’m sorry,” he adds, as if on a second thought, and he knows Michael understands he’s not just saying the words for what has happened tonight. 

He turns around and starts walking away when Michael speaks up again. “It’s Isobel,” he wheezes out. “She’s really sick and I can’t do anything to help her. She’s _dying_ and I am useless, powerless.”

Alex is turning around and limping his way to the lawn chair so fast he feels dizzy when he reaches Michael. “Come again?” he demands breathlessly. “What do you mean, Isobel’s dying?”

Michael doesn’t look up from his hands. He is shaking, and Alex is dying to take Michael in his arms and soothe his fears away. “We don’t know what’s got into her. She’s never been sick. None of us has ever been sick, so we don’t know. And now she’s dying and I don’t know what to do, I can’t help because I don’t know shit!”

“Where is she now?” he asks softly. Ignoring the pain in his right leg, he tries to squat by Michael’s side. “Where is Isobel?”

“I can’t tell you,” Michael sighs. He throws his head back in a bland attempt of keeping the tears from freely falling down his face – even in the dim light of the night Michael doesn’t want anyone to see him vulnerable, and Alex can totally relate to that. “For as much as I want to, I can’t. It’s just... you wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t even believe me. And God help me, I do want you to believe _in_ me.”

“Try me,” Alex says. He is sensing something is falling into place between them. He knows he can’t ask for forgiveness – he’s hurt Michael too much for that – but at least he can try to pry that soul open for him. Maybe that way he can learn more about the reasons why his father thinks Michael Guerin is a terrorist _and_ an alien – which he, by the way, isn’t so keen on considering.

“No, Alex, you should just leave,” Michael looks straight into his eyes and Alex feels as if that gaze could strip him bare. “I just want to be alone. Please, leave. Don’t make me make you.”

And he should comply, stand up and walk away, but Alex has always been a stubborn guy, and years in the army – facing horrors he would have never thought he’d survive – have turned him into an unbelievably insistent man. So he just stares into Michael’s eyes for a long moment before standing up, the pain in his leg already killing him. “I’m not going anywhere,” he states softly. “I’m not leaving you alone, you’re in no shape for being left on your own right now.”

“I am no risk for myself,” Michael assures him, and Alex has to bite down the scoff. “But I might be – for you. Please.” 

Alex knows Michael isn’t the pleading kind, and he’s already asked as nicely as possible. But Alex isn’t going anywhere; he senses Michael’s breakdown is closer by the second and something inside of him doesn’t allow his feet to move when the fucking _love of his life_ is practically cut in shreds of pain and despair. “If that’s what you want,” he concedes, walking a few steps backwards, gaze always locked with Michael.

That is the definition of _never look away_ , it seems.

Had he been a different person – had he been the same teenager that once left Roswell, innocent and broken – he would have missed the way the light inside of the Airstream flickered through the window. A light that he could have sworn wasn’t lit when he arrived at the place. His eyes dart from Michael’s to the trailer, and in that fraction of second all turn to hell.

Tools from the junkyard are lifted from the table and the floor, swirling in circles around the place. One of the lawn chairs flips over with a strength Alex has never witnessed, without anyone pushing at it. The windows of the Airstream burst, sending small crystals Alex’s way. He ducks out of practice, rolling onto the ground as if he were again in the sands of war. For a brief moment he thinks they’re being shot, but when he looks up for Michael to take cover, Alex can see a head bowed down, eyes closed, curls wildly against the sudden cold wind, every item flying around them, brushing past Michael. 

As if they couldn’t touch him. 

As if he was the one controlling the chaos.

And Alex understands, in that very second, that his father was right – there is something completely unhuman about Michael. Something he has probably known all along, something wild and unexpected. Something that can take control over Michael and break hell loose. In that moment Alex realizes, just as firmly as he suddenly believes, that he needs to protect Michael from whatever force it is.

He _needs_ to give Michael back the quiet he yearns for, so he can be able to silence the chaos and cry for Isobel the way he wants to, not the way this – whatever it is – is making him mourn for her. 

As quickly as it started, it all ends with the thud of the tools and the chair falling down to earth once again. Alex notices that Michael has opened his eyes, and he can see the fear following the initial bewilderment.

“Alex,” he mutters, blinking. He doesn’t move, but Alex is pretty sure he is weighing his options of running away. He sounds tired – weary.

It is in that very moment that Alex realizes that he doesn’t care about Michael’s true nature – alien, terrorist or whatever his father can come up with – because there is no way that the broken man before his eyes could be anything but _human_.

And he loves him. Has loved him for a very long time – longer than the ten year span dividing them.

“I’m here,” he all but whispers back from his spot on the ground. Heavily, he stands up, consciously not acknowledging the remnants of the violent party the tools and gear have thrown in the junkyard. “I’m here,” he repeats, approaching Michael slowly. He doesn’t want to scare him off more than he already is.

He doesn’t want to be the reason why Michael is _ever_ fearful.

“Leave!” Michael cries out, abruptly coming out of the trance he has been trapped in. “I told you to leave me alone!”

“I couldn’t,” Alex confesses. He’s already at a touching distance from Michael, but he still doesn’t reach out to him. “I’ve told you I want to help.”

“What do you want to do, actually?” Michael sounds as shattered as he looks like, and it is breaking Alex’s heart. “Now you’ve seen, and I’m not even sure you fully understand what has been going on here. It doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, why don’t you go and tell your father what you’ve seen? I bet he might be delighted.”

And don’t those words sting. Alex shakes his head. “I may not be completely sure of what I’ve just seen, but I know you _know_ I wouldn’t run and tell daddy dear about anything that could compromise you,” he says softly. “You _know_ I’d do anything to protect you; hell, Guerin, I’ve even been to war to keep him off you.”

“Stop it! Right now!” Michael jerks out of the chair and faces Alex with a wild look in his eyes. They are so close that Alex can see the sparks of gold in Michael’s brown eyes. The rest of the world is diffused, but he can sense the tingling of the soil, as if Michael is charging up from it. Maybe he _actually_ is. “You don’t get to say that now. You don’t have a right to just come and go and treat me like I’m this sick puppy that you – you –”

Alex cuts him the only way he knows, for Michael is starting to lose control again and he has already seen what Michael is capable of when he’s angry, or sad, or overwhelmed. As much as Alex wants to dive into the mystery, he needs to focus on the problem at hand.

He has to keep Michael as calmed as possible.

He kisses Michael, and maybe it isn’t the smartest trick ever, but Michael shuts up and hums against his lips. When he feels like nothing is going to fly their way, Alex pulls away, slowly, carefully. All the while staring into Michael’s eyes when he opens them.

“Now,” Alex smiles. “Feeling a little bit better?”

Michael nods. “Why haven’t you left?” he asks, and Alex hears the implicit question, _why haven’t you run away from the monster I am_ lingering between them. He knows Michael so well, even after so many moons of pining and missing. He can feel the throbbing in his hand because it is the same ache he has been feeling in his very soul.

“I could reply in so many ways.” Alex caresses Michael’s nape with shaky fingers. “But I also can just state the obvious. I love you. I am _in_ love with you, you idiot. I’ve never been able to walk away from you.”

This isn’t the way he had expected the night to, but he hadn’t imagined he would discover that Michael Guerin is actually an alien mourning the upcoming loss of one of his best friends – a sister to him.

Which takes them back to where it all started. “You were saying Isobel is sick?” he asks slowly.

“You love me,” Michael repeats in awe. His voice has the power to break Alex and fix him all at once – the disbelief in his words hitting too close. “Why?”

“People don’t always have an agenda, Michael,” Alex utters, and the realization of what he’s saying dawns on him like a lightning. “I would have hoped you’d learned that lesson.”

“I learned so many other things that night,” Michael retorts with a heavy voice. “Such as – I loved you too. I _still_ love you. I just know I don’t deserve you.”

“Let me decide the things I deserve, okay? Now, how about you tell me about Isobel? Without all the wreckage, if possible.”

“You’ve seen,” Michael stammers. “You’ve seen _me_ , and you’re not running away.”

“I told you to just try me with whatever you wanted to explain,” Alex repeats. “Just do it. There are a lot of things that I still don’t know that I want to learn, but first things first. We’ll have enough time afterwards for whatever it is you want to tell me. I promise I’ll listen.”

He intertwines his fingers with Michael’s blasted ones and squeezes.

“You won’t want to stay afterwards,” Michael whispers.

“That’s up to me, Guerin,” Alex says playfully. “But you can bet your cowboy hat that I’m not going anywhere. Not without you. Never again.”

Michael sighs as contentedly as the situation allows him to, and leans into Alex’s touch. “There is so much I want to tell you, but I don’t know where to start, I don’t know anything at this point.”

“What about you start with whatever’s happening right now, and we’ll see from there?” Alex suggests, pulling at Michael’s fingers until he manages to fit them both in the only lawn chair that has survived the chaos.

“Isobel, then,” Michael grimaces. “It’s going to be painful. And awkward.”

“I can take awkward,” Alex replies kindly. “As long as it’s _you_.”

Michael looks at him for a loaded moment before sighing. He opens and closes his mouth before finding his voice and speaking up, tearing down the last of his defenses.

Alex is there all the way, following him, listening and crying with him, not asking questions – _what for_ , he asks himself. There is no reason to doubt, not after what he’s witnessed, not after getting acquainted with the intel his father has gathered about Michael. There is a bubbling pain in his chest where there was fear before, and Alex vows to kiss the worried frown in Michael’s brow every day – vows to protect him from the demons of this world, from the demons in any world.

And in the end there is only one thing that he can do to appease the sorrowful soul bare in front of him.

Their fingers remain intertwined as he leans in and kisses Michael, accepting him for all he is – for _who_ he is, no matter what.

Home can be, in fact, a person.


End file.
